FILIPINOS’ trust in government and five other institutions have slightly dropped since 2017, but majority would still choose their home country as permanent residence, according to the latest Philippine Trust Index (PTI) released September 9.

The PTI, a proprietary research undertaken by communications consultancy firm The EON Group, indicates that while “moderate trust” for the government dropped by four percentage points to 76% from 80% in 2017, the “extreme trust levels for the institution has remained the same” since 2017.

The study also showed that Filipinos trust the Office of the President “more than any other sub institution within the government,” bucking the downtrend with an increase of four percentage points.

Young Filipinos aged 18 to 24 are the least trusting with only 70% having confidence in government while those aged 35-44 are more trusting at 81%.

National peace and security remain as the most important trust driver in government for Filipinos with 81% of respondents believing that the current administration “ensures national peace and security.”

A similar 80% also believe that the government “improves” the Philippine economy, but only 69% believe that the government “puts corrupt politicians to jail.”

The five other key institutions — the business sector, media, non-government organizations (NGOs), the church, and the academe — all saw a decline in trust levels.

The business sector posted a lower trust rating of 71% from 75% in 2017. Trust in all industries such as agriculture, mining, and water and sanitation also dropped since 2017.

For the church and the academe, both with a three percentage point drop to 90% from 93% keeps the trust level strong and highest among all institutions.

Trust in NGOs dipped the lowest at 22 percentage points, or 37% from 59%.

The media saw a decline to 69% from 78%.

Despite the decline in trust for all institutions, the PTI showed that “majority of Filipinos still opt to remain in the country” with “86% among respondents that are amenable to leaving the Philippines would do so for work or business, 10% for pleasure, and only 3% for migration.”

“This equates to only 1% of total respondents intending to leave the country for good,” it said.

The latest PTI, the sixth in the series, had 1,476 responses from randomly selected households across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. It has a sampling error of +/- 2.8 at 95% confidence level.

The data gathering was conducted from March to April this year, which was before the national and local elections in May.

The EON Group said in this latest research, they “turned social media into a pillar of the study by exploring Filipinos’ expressions of trust in the institutions across social media platforms, by listening in on conversations online to discover whether these discussions truly reflect the on ground realities.” — Marc Wyxzel C. Dela Paz